Deadly Premonition - 7.0/10

This is one of those games that is so difficult to attach a rating to. I'll stick with my 7.0, but I should add, I have a tremendous amount of affection for this game.

First off, there are certainly things wrong with it. The graphics are at early PS2 levels, the controls are awkward and clunky, and the enemies don't vary much and are repetitive. The game is guilty of some things that I usually hate in games. It has an over dependence on cut scenes to tell the story and it uses them a lot. Another thing it uses a lot are quick time events, something I normally hate.

So why do I like this game. Well you are guaranteed that you haven't played anything quite like this. It is quirky, disturbing, and irrational in a way that only the Japanese seem to be able to pull of in their games. You play federal agent Francis York Morgan investigating a bizarre, ritualistic murder, in a sleepy northwestern town. The town is populated by an exceedingly strange collection of citizens from the zombie like grave digger, to a convenience store owner who looks like he walked off the set of Grease - from the harlot gas station attendant to the roaming old lady who talks to her pot. In fact, the environment is so much like David Lynch's Twin Peaks that it's hard to imagine that it wasn't at least partially inspired by the television series.

And Agent Morgan (but everyone calls him York) isn't quite right either. He spends the entire game talking to his invisible companion, Zack - mostly about 80's movies and punk rock. The missions usually involve you driving from location to location (the driving can get tedious), and either interviewing citizens for clues, or fighting zombie like spirits which suddenly start rising out of the ground. The thing is, I actually became invested in the story and characters of this strange little town, as well as the story of York and Zack - indeed, much more so than in a typical, bigger budget, game. In the end, I wanted to know what was happening here and how it was going to play out. In fact, the ghost shooting was a disappointing diversion from getting more cut scenes telling the story.

If you are the type of person to be put off by quirky story telling, poor graphics, and uneven game-play, then I would have to recommend giving this a pass, but if you can get past that, you may find a lot here that is refreshingly different.

Immersion: 4
Interface: 2
Game Play: 3
Challenge: 4
Fun: 4

Overall: 7.0/10